The following tale comes from the seaside town of Troon in Scotland, as experienced by myself and some friends. A brief summary of the events appeared in several local newspapers and a paranormal site, as reported by myself.

With regards to the paranormal, I would actually call myself an agnostic, neither fully believing nor disbelieving, but what I experienced at this abandoned house would possibly suggest that there is indeed something ‘on the other side’.

Up until around 2015, Crosbie Towers was an abandoned mansion, previously the home of a whisky merchant (built in the nineneenth century), and was then a care home and subsequently a property of the Church of Scotland, though I’ve no idea what the Church wanted with it. As of 2012, it had been fully abandoned for around a decade or so. The name ‘Crosbie’ means dwelling by the cross (‘Cros’ + ‘bie’, by), but there was nothing Godly about this house.

In May 2012 some friends and I ventured in at late evening. The house could only be accessed from the back as all the doors and windows were boarded up. At the back one of the wooden boards could be shifted, revealing an entrance that used to be a door. It was a dusty, narrow passageway which led into the main ground floor lobby of the house, with rooms coming off on all sides. A sign read, ‘Warning, CCTV’, but we knew it was just a ploy and went on. We did have to be careful though because some flat windows overlooked the back garden and they were known to watch out for intruders on the grounds of Crosbie Towers. They were mostly grumpy old men or ladies and we wouldn’t let the thought of them ruin our adventures.

We were pensive after going in the back door; the interior of the house was dark. We milled around a while, joking or talking, egging each other on to go in further beyond the passageway. Eventually we did, and I was at the back, but I still heard that incredibly loud, unforgettable bang from upstairs as we entered the main part of the ground floor for the first time. We rushed out and didn’t return till a few days later. I remember walking home with one of my friends and talking about the bang after it had happened. It sounded like it came from the top of the staircase to the second floor, just as somebody at the front approached the bottom of the stairs. I can almost hear it today.

The next time we came to the house, we were at the back entrance again, and I just had this indescribable feeling that something was going to happen. It almost felt like a trance. Then I heard, or thought I heard, a piercing female cry. I ran out into the back yard, convinced the cry was real. To my dismay, nobody else had heard anything. Maybe it was just fear and it was inside my head, perhaps due to an overactive imagination, but it sounded so real. If it was inside my head, I guess it shows how powerful a thing the mind is.

Eventually we did muster up enough courage to go in again, and we explored the whole of the ground floor. It was pretty ruined and littered with some debris, but the old carpets were still in place. It smelled musty, like a library. There was a broken-down elevator, side passageways and, to our horror, a dentist’s chair. We joked that it looked like a torture chamber. Above the second floor, there was also a spiral staircase leading to the tower. But we never ever made it up there, let alone the second floor; we were too scared. I remember us standing at the top of the stairs, looking at the hemmed-in second floor hallway and rooms, and being too nervous. We joked what our feelings would be had we reached the tower only to hear unexplained noises down below. That was a terrifying thought. Would we dare go back down?

Naturally, we took many photographs. One friend took some pictures of the window on the second floor which looked out onto the back entrance and yard. In one of the photos there was nothing, just the open window. Yet on another photo, taken minutes apart, there was a white ‘thing’ in the open window looking out. It wasn’t a clear ‘face’, but it definitely looked like one, and it was just pure white with black slits. She showed us these photos at the very time we stood beneath the window. It was just above us.

That was as far as our experiences went in 2012. Some of us would return a year later in 2013, in particular exploring the huts and outhouses round the back (the grounds were big indeed). ‘I fucking hate this house,’ said one friend nervously as we explored a back-room which looked like it had been a kitchen. It led into the main belly of the house via broken cables. It was a remark I remember, because it was interesting how we were both allured to the house and petrified by it. I guess its a powerful combination at the root of most enquiries into the unknown.

On one occasion, as we were walking along the road beside the seafront just outside Crosbie Towers, we heard noises coming from the house, like loud taps on a window or wall. However, there was no wind; this was a calm, windless Spring evening. We turned and looked at each other, then when we turned back to the house, the taps resumed, almost like it was trying to get our attention. We repeated the process and the same thing happened. That was creepy.

After all that, we went our separate ways and forgot about the house, sometimes talking with each other in our last year at school, but I haven’t forgotten what we heard and saw there. It is something I shall always refer back to when discussing the paranormal. Online photos and stories from other people can only take you so far, but nobody can take away your own experiences.

The building was renovated around 2015 and is now a block of apartments, a blend of the old and the new. Personally I think it looks ugly, and prefer the old aesthetic. I have no idea who lives there now, but God help them.